Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sunday: Laundry day again. I baked some cookies with the girls too. They enjoyed that and the cookies came out pretty good. Another quiet low key day for the most part. Just looking forward to a hopefully quiet low key week.

Monday: I went to the grocery store today. Then to the bank. Our landlord came up after 7 to work on the toilet again and still did not fix it. This is becoming just slightly frustrating. And because of my experiences at the grocery store and with my landlord it prompted me to write this post.

Tuesday: We bought me a new used car. It's a 2003 Dodge Caravan. We'll probably pick it up next week when we are able to give the rest of our down payment. We took the kids out to dinner at TGI Fridays to "award" Natalie (as she puts it) for a job well done at her concert last week. And our landlord did not come up to fix the toilet like he was supposed to. So we now have a toilet that's leaking way more than it ever did before and no end in site to this.

Wednesday: A snow day! The kids are happy. No playgroup this week. My landlord finally came up to fix the toilet. I had to call him when things had gone from bad to worse to get him up here. It got to the point where shutting off the water going to the toilet still didn't work and water was spraying all over the place. I think it is finally fixed though. I got so frustrated with it all though that I actually took a video of the very bad leak just in case he didn't fix it and I had to call a plumber and take the cost out of my rent. Proof that he wasn't fixing the problem.

Thursday: There was a delayed opening for school. The girls didn't go in until 10:25. I then had to deposit a check in the bank. So CJ didn't get to go down for his nap until an hour late. I then had to wake him up early to go get Joe from work. We came home and his therapist was here. So we had his therapy. His therapist is impressed with him. He's doing great. I picked the girls up from school and spoke to Kaitlyn's teacher about her reading. Very discouraged there :(.

Friday: Joe had a doctor's appointment this morning. His cholesterol is up so he's now on meds for that. It wasn't too bad, but he won't change his diet. I went to the school to pick up the Box Tops for this months competition. I counted them and Kaitlyn's class won. I have enough of my own Box Tops to make it a tie between Natalie and Kaitlyn's class, but Natalie wants to hang onto them to hopefully help her class win February's competition. So Kaitlyn and her class will all get a certificate for a free kids cone to Friendly's. Our school is well on it's way to earning over $1000 just from Box Tops this year!

Saturday: We went out to Denny's for breakfast. Then after being totally filled by our Grand Slam breakfasts we went to Walmart to shop for prizes for November and December's Box Tops winners. Boy am I behind on my Box Top prize distribution. I'm putting together gift bags for the classes who won those two months. Took a nap and had pizza for dinner, yum!

So that's the week of January 25 - January 31, 2009 in review. Not too much going on. There was good and bad. My toilet is finally fixed at least and I'm getting a new car. It will be nice to have more than one car again! Be sure to check next weeks Week In Review because we have a busy week planned.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Renee over at Life With My Special K's is giving away Hallmark Valentine's day greeting cards. Ten people can win so go check it outhere. You have until February 5th to enter. That's Thursday so get on over to Life With My Special K's to enter! Here are some samples of some of the cards you can win:

Thursday, January 29, 2009

I am feeling so discouraged and defeated right now. Kaitlyn is struggling with reading. Well, she has been all along and it's always just been a lets wait and see how she does kind of thing. She had a reading test this week and is considered substantially deficient.

I wish I knew what was going on in Kaitlyn's head though. She tries so hard. I see it, her teacher sees it, her reading teacher sees it. So why can't she get this? How does she feel about this? I know she's gotta be feeling discouraged. She gets so frustrated when she can't read a word. I don't know what more I can do for her.

Her teacher is actually concerned that there is something more going on with her. The problem is they usually don't test in 1st grade because they want to give them time to develop more. So we're looking at the possibility of retention. I don't want her to stay back. Reading is all she's struggling in. She does well in math. So what if she does stay back and is doing all of the same stuff over again? What if she gets board and starts acting out? Then there's her age. Her birthday is in April. She's one of the older ones in her grade. How is that going to feel to be over a year older than a good portion of the other children in her class? She's been in school with most of these children in her own grade since preschool. So how is that going to feel to see them all moving on while she stays behind?

I don't want her to hate reading. I just don't know if this is what's best for her. I want them to test her for something. She can read high frequency words one day, but then the next she can't read those same words. I really want testing done. I really worry about her. I wish I could get into her head and figure out what's going on in there. Please don't let my little girl have to stay back a year!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

So I figured we'd have a snow day today and I was right. It didn't get called until this morning though. So the girls were up at their usual time (7) waiting to hear if they had school or not. That of course in turn wakes CJ up. So everyone is up. Joe had to be at work for 8. And I knew this would be how the day played out. However, I stayed up way too late last night. I actually fell asleep on the couch around midnight or so. Then CJ woke me up shortly before 2 crying. He couldn't find his pacifier and of course I couldn't find one either. So he's of course screaming as I'm frantically looking for one. Boy does that wake you up. I finally found one though and he settled back down. I went to the bathroom and got my pj's on and climbed into bed, but now I was awake again. I couldn't fall asleep. So I got back up and started entering Bloggy Giveaways from the Bloggy Carnival. I did that until 4 in the morning. Not my brightest idea, but I wasn't sleepy. And I still had a hard time falling asleep when I went back to bed. So three hours later and I'm up for the day. Got all three kids here. I'll try to catch some zzzz's when CJ goes down for a nap at 10 though. Well, probably not since my landlord is supposed to come up then to work on the now extremely broken toilet. He better fix it today too that's all I know because if he doesn't I might just lose it. And believe me on no sleep that would not be pretty.

Type in "[your name] hates" in Google search.Monica hates veterans (This is just simply not true. And frankly rather mean!)

Type in "[your name] asks" in Google search.Monica asks Portugal government for shelter. (Not so sure that I want to live in Portugal, but hey if they'll provide shelter I'll give it a try.)

Type in "[your name] likes " in Google searchMonica likes to be with babies. (Sure, most of the time.)

Type in "[your name] eats " in Google search.Monica Eats Cake! (Yup, I do and probably too much of it too.)

Type in "[your name] wears " in Google search.Monica wears leather gloves. (Nope, I honestly hate wearing gloves, but the few pairs that I own are not leather. Maybe I would wear gloves if they were leather.)

Type in "[your name] was arrested for" in Google Search.Monica was arrested for growing medical marijuana. (I really don't know what to say to this.)

Type in "[your name] goes" in Google search.Monica goes to the zoo. (Sure, I've been to the zoo before.)

Now wasn't that fun? If you decide to try it too let me know what you get in your search.

Monday, January 26, 2009

1. People who say, "What's wrong with him?" in reference to CJ's helmet. Not just saying it, but running up to me to say it and catching me completely off guard as I'm loading groceries into my car. Nothings wrong with him what's wrong with you?

2. Telling Kaitlyn over and over again to pick her clothes up off the floor. But then when she does she puts dirty clothes in with the clean clothes.

3. CJ finding the power button on my computer and turning it off on me.

4. A landlord who thinks he knows how to fix things, but every time he does he just makes things worse than they were before.

5. Spill proof cups that aren't really spill proof.

6. Whiney children.

7. Natalie talking back to me constantly. And worse yet knowing that it's only going to get worse the older she gets.

8. Joe complaining every time he takes the garbage out about how often he has to take it out like it's my fault that it fills up quickly or something.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

I thought I would try something new with WIR (Week In Review). A little synopsis of what we've been up to in a given week.

Sunday: I did laundry all day. Fun fun fun.

Monday: There was no school. So we just hung out at home. A nice relaxing day. One where CJ started standing.

Tuesday: CJ had his cranial tech appointment. We got the good news that he only has 6-8 more weeks in the band. He will most likely exit treatment once he outgrows this band. There will probably be a little flatness, but they don't think a 3rd band will do any more. So there's light at the end of this tunnel. Then that night was Natalie's concert. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already here.

Wednesday: Playgroup day. We had lots of fun showing off CJ's new skill of standing.

Thursday: CJ had therapy. We met the nutritionist who told us how to fatten CJ up. It's as simple as adding butter, mayonnaise, cheese, or anything fattening to his food. We found out also that CJ is at age level for everything. His therapist will continue coming out until May when we've been receiving services for a year and she'll have to make everything official. Way to go CJ!

Friday: I had my appointment with my Gynecologist. This was the first time I had been to see her since we lost Celeste. I also just got my period back on Thursday which is a little depressing. We have no more answers to why Celeste died. All of the millions of tests they did turned up nothing. So we still only have it was a cord accident as an answer. Our landlord came up on this evening too to work on our leaky toilet.

Saturday: Our landlord was supposed to come up in the morning to repair the toilet. He did not call until nearly noon though and wanted to come up in an hour or so. His hour is more like four hours so we told him we were going out. We went to the local consignment shop to consign some clothes, then stopped at a car dealer to look at a new car for me, and then off to Walmart to buy diapers and other things for the house. We were home before 4, but our landlord wasn't. He came home shortly after five and came up shortly thereafter. He worked on our toilet for nearly three hours and it's still broken. He claims he'll be back Monday to fix it. There is still water leaking onto my floor though. Needless to say I am getting slightly aggravated that he hasn't fixed this yet and can't seem to pinpoint the problem. Hopefully I'll be able to report next week that I didn't have to continue to clean up water off my bathroom floor.

So that's this Week In Review for January 18th through January 24th. All in all not a bad week. Everyone's healthy so that's always a good week.

Friday, January 23, 2009

So Wednesday night the kids old pediatrician called. The one who we left some eight months ago because he was doing nothing for CJ. He wanted to know how CJ was doing and if there was an underlying problem that was discovered. This was a voicemail which I didn't check until Thursday. I wasn't sure how to react. The doctor hadn't called me when we left his practice to find out why or anything. So why was he calling me now? I decided I would call though to let him know what he missed. So I did that today. I just left a message with the receptionist though. I told her that CJ was thriving and the underlying problem was acid reflux. I hope she gave the doctor the message and he felt so small for missing that.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Last night Natalie had her school concert. She was in band and chorus. She did a wonderful job. Here's a video of it. I have to apologize for the quality of it. I had a perfect shot of her until the girl sitting next to her moved the music stand right in front of her face. Oh well, not much I can do. We had a treat last night and got to hear the middle school jazz band play as well. I didn't get that on video because I couldn't really see them. They were awesome though. I'm hoping that made Natalie a little more enthusiastic about actually practicing. She tells me she wants to play the clarinet, but it's hard. So I tell her she has to practice so it will get easier. She doesn't seem to believe me no matter what I tell her. So I am really hoping that last nights concert will open her eyes a little more and get her to practice. I told her if it's too hard and she doesn't like playing the clarinet she doesn't have to continue playing, but she says she wants to keep doing it. So we will see. Oh and yes the baby "singing" along would be CJ.

Didn't she do a great job? I told you it would be an entertaining post today. There should be another concert in the spring. I can't wait to see how much improvement she makes by then. She has only been playing for two months.

Monday, January 19, 2009

That's him standing on his own. He was so proud of himself as you can see. He's doing so much so quickly. And it won't be long now before he is walking too. He took two steps to me tonight! I couldn't get it on video of course. It was one of those if you blink you'll miss it sort of things and he wouldn't do it again. He's really getting the hang of all this stuff though. Here are a few more pictures of my big boy practicing his new found skill.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

We don't have any stairs actually inside of our apartment. And we don't let CJ play on the stairs outside on the front or back of the house. They are just way too dangerous and steep here and well it's freezing outside right now anyways. So when I was asked the other day if he climbs stairs yet I immediately said no he doesn't get the opportunity to even try which is fine by me. So imagine my surprise at playgroup today when he was doing it! And of course me without my camera.

Our weekly playgroup which is run through the FRC (Family Resource Center) is at the girl's school. So convenient. I drop them off at school and go right downstairs to the library for some playtime and snack and story. I've been attending this playgroup since before Natalie even started going to school there. And it has been non stop since then. The kids love it and quite frankly I love it too.

So the library has four small steps to get down into it at the school. And that's where playgroup is. So we got there today and we were playing and CJ was in such a great mood today. Big smile on his face the whole time. He's walking around (with help still) and playing with a good friend of mines children and stuff. Then he decides after climbing in and out of the block box that this just wasn't exciting enough for him anymore. So he crawls over to a table and then with much stealth maneuvers himself around the table till he gets to the end. Then he sees another table that he wants to get to. So he pushes a chair over to it and grabs on. Touching everything along the way mind you. He gets to the end of that table (the art table so there was lots to distract him there) and then decides he wants to keep going. So he grabs onto the book shelves and thankfully wasn't distracted too much by the books and walks himself to the end of one of the book shelves. And what's at the end of that book shelf?

THE STAIRS!

I thought there's no way he's going to climb up them, but stayed close by just in case. He watched another little boy about 9 months older than him climbing up the stairs and then almost seemed to think to himself hey I can do that too. And off he want. Crawled right up those four stairs no problem. Got to the top, stopped, and gave the whole room a huge smile like hey look what I just did. I took him back down before he could fall down them and he went right back for them and did the same thing again. Such a look of accomplishment on his face at what he could do.

It was time to clean up the toys though so I was able to distract him and get him to put the blocks way. I think he would have repeated going up those stairs all morning long if I let him. But he couldn't. And I am so thankful that I have no stairs for him to experiment with at home. At least not until the spring gets here and we go outside again to play. That will be scary though if he tries to climb the porch stairs. And from now on I think I will have to try to remember to always have my camera with me. I swear it's always the time that you don't have it that they do something like this. Daddy is going to be so proud of his boy though when he hears what he did today!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Kaitlyn worries me sometimes so much. School is just not her thing already and she's only six. She tries so hard though, but it just doesn't come as easily to her as it seems to for Natalie. That's gotta be discouraging in itself. But anyways reading is her biggest trouble area. Well, spelling too, but that all goes together. She gets a spelling test every week. Now I quiz her on her words at home and she always gets them right at home. Now granted she studies them right before I'll quiz her. But then at school she usually has 3 out of 10 wrong. And much to my dismay she had 5 out of 10 wrong before Christmas break. I couldn't discuss it with her teacher though at that time. I was going to talk to her this week, but the weather hasn't exactly cooperated and I haven't found myself actually at the school all that much. We worked extra hard on her spelling this week though and it paid off. She only got one wrong on her test. She was so proud as was I. And to make things even better her reading teacher sent home a note about Kaitlyn's reading. She read a DRA level 5 book perfect today. Her reading teacher sounded so optimistic. However, she'll be tested soon on her reading by her teacher and she needs to be a DRA level of 8. Now I'm unclear on a few things which I will be asking about next week. Her reading teacher said for her to pass she needed to read a DRA level 8. Well, I'm unsure if she doesn't pass this test does that mean she'll have to stay back? I know they'll test again probably in May so I can't see why that would determine her future for next year. I'm not sure she'll actually be able to do it. She's only actually reading DRA books up to Level 7. Hopefully her teacher holds off on testing her until the end of the month to give her a little more time. I still worry about her. I wish I knew what would make this easier for her. I love seeing her make progress though. And I'm relieved that I have such a great relationship with her reading teacher that she actually sends me notes or stops me in the hall when she sees me to tell me of any progress that Kaitlyn is making.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

At dinner tonight with the girls we began discussing friends. You see we've been talking about moving out of state very seriously for the past few days. To the point where we are planning a trip to look at possible homes and jobs in another state.

Now much to my surprise when we first started discussing this Natalie was all over this. She was ready to move that second. Even when I pointed out that we would be too far away to visit her friends regularly and stuff. This is a shock because Natalie is usually my more sensitive child. If I get to the school to pick her up and she has to wait for me she's always panicking and wondering where I am. Now mind you this does not happen often and half of the time I'm usually in the school just not where the students are picked up.

Kaitlyn, my more go with the flow child, has been more anxious and upset at this thought. She doesn't want to leave her friends behind because she has so many. Now of course we've told her that she'll make new friends and stuff and have pointed out to her that we'll all be in the same boat with making new friends, but we will have each other. Now I'm sure she'll be just fine if we are able to do this and she'll fall in love with wherever we move to.

Now back to the point of this post. You see in our dinner discussion tonight Kaitlyn said something about Natalie not having a lot of friends. Now first I had to scold Kaitlyn for being so mean and then had to tell Natalie that it's not the amount of friends she has that matters, but how good those friends she has are. This also isn't the first time that Kaitlyn has brought up Natalie's limited amount of friends. So I figured we better discuss this more. Now things are starting to make sense. Natalie is looking at Kaitlyn who is friends with everyone in her class and remembering when that was the case for her too. So she's looking at this move as a new start for her I think.

But I've been thinking, I didn't worry about my popularity until I was in middle school. Natalie's only in 4th grade and she's already struggling with these sorts of things. And really I've seen it since 2nd grade beginning to happen. The girls in her grade are so caddy with each other. One minute they love you and the next they want nothing to do with you. And Natalie never used to be like that, but she's starting to do it too. For a while there she could do nothing but talk about this girl Kaylee. Now I know Kaylee. When I was the girl scout leader she was in my troop. She's one of those fair weather friends. She will be chummy with you when it suits her. But recently Natalie has been saying Kaylee isn't her friend anymore. She likes this boy that Natalie likes and he likes Kaylee so Natalie doesn't want anything to do with either of them. Now I have discussed this with Natalie. Used mine and Joe's relationship as an example even that she can still be friends with this boy and this girl if that's what she wants. She looks at me though like yeah right mom there's no way I can do that.

So just another example of her growing up way too fast. My advice and input is already not needed. She's not even a teenager yet. I suppose just the beginning of my having to let go. I worry though at how fast this all seems to be happening. There's so much more pressure on children these days and it's almost like they feel like they have to grow up faster. Natalie already doesn't want to get any older. She's not really looking forward to turning 10 this year. Perhaps that's my fault since I protested turning 30 so much just two months ago. But then again to an extent I go through this every year with her. I was excited to turn 10 and be in double digits. Then it was I can't wait to be 12 because I'd be a pre-teen. Then 13 I would be a teen. And 15 I could get my first job (not that I did, but just knowing I could was enough for me). Then 16 I could drive, 18 I was an "adult" and could buy cigarettes, and of course 21 I could drink and was officially an adult. Perhaps that's why I dreaded 30 so much. Once I got to 21 there was nothing else to look forward to. Well, except maybe retirement or becoming a Senior Citizen ;). I don't know though to me a ten year old shouldn't be worrying about her popularity, boys, and growing older. She's got enough to worry about without these things. Maybe a new start really would do us all some good. I wonder if little girls all over the US are so quick to grow up these days or if there is somewhere where a little girl gets to stay a little girl a little longer.

Welcome to a brand new year! Happy 2009! I have lots of hopes for this year. 2008 wasn't so great in the Barnes household. I hope to put all of those rough times behind us though and leave them in 2008 and look forward to things to come. Natalie will be turning 10 this year! Hard to believe. Joe and I will celebrate our 9th anniversary in March. CJ is making such great strides in his motor skills. I think his first steps will be coming very soon. I'm excited also to watch his vocabulary expand. And I have great hopes for Kaitlyn this year that she'll make great strides in her reading so I won't have to continue to worry. I hope to have plenty to celebrate this year. Happy 2009 to all of my readers! I hope you continue to find what I have to say interesting and come back to read more.